Plodging through the clart (part 1)

All last week workmen battled with the elements and put up the base of the conservatory. The garden looked like a wet Glastonbury festival aftermath, so we determined we would escape its muddy mess and have a photographic foray.

On Saturday we made our way to the abandoned asylum. Unfortunately we were unable to get very near the actual buildings, though the temptation to try and breach the closed gates was great.

Fluttering by

Having got rather cold wandering round the park we decided to visit the butterfly house.

I've done a bit of Googling and have identified this as a Glasswing butterfly. Aptly named, its wings are quite transparent as it does not have the colour giving scales of other butterflies and moths. The advantage of this is that it makes it hard to follow as it flits about.

An Owl butterfly; as well as the eye spots, this also seems to have snake mimicry. How did this all evolve?

Getting lost with confidence

I have inherited my father's total lack of sense of direction. While he was able to style it out and tell us that we were taking "the scenic route home", my children very quickly stopped asking 'Are we nearly there yet?" and asked instead "Are we lost yet?". My reply was invariably, "not  lost, just slightly misplaced", but they soon cottoned on that this was usually a gross exaggeration.

Recently while shopping, I suggested to my copilot (whose sense of direction is equal to mine) that perhaps we should get one of those things to help us get lost. I was having a senior moment at the time and the phrase 'Sat nav' had escaped off my brain map . I am going to a niece's wedding next month; it is being held at a place I have heard of but never been to and the idea of setting off days in advance to ensure that I arrive in time wasn't very appealing.

So the sat nav was bought. It was really easy to set up, all we needed to do was check out how it performed. It seemed sensible to go to a place we already knew how to find and could drive to without any detours. Amazing! ..... not only does Emma (we have yet to see how Daniel performs) enunciate in clear tones when to turn, there are also indications on the screen as to speed restrictions and speed the car is travelling at. Sat nav becomes sat nag as copilot points out we are in a 30mph zone and the car is doing 31mph.

Having arrived successfully at the destination, we set it the task to take us to somewhere we hadn't been to, and then having got there, found that it was able to guide us home; which is just as well really as we could still be wending our way back yet. The magic of technology!

However we still both need to be in the car with the gizmo. It's that slight problem of left and right. As navigators, both of us will announce "turn right here" while waving our left arm, to which the driver's response is invariably "which right to you mean, my side of the car, or yours?" Luckily the navigator will now be able to resolve that problem by looking at the screen and holding up the correct arm!